PT101.S2.Q8 > Analytics

SECTION 1 · rc

PASSAGE 1

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6

PASSAGE 2

Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13

PASSAGE 3

Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20

PASSAGE 4

Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26 Question 27

SECTION 2 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25

SECTION 3 · lr

SECTION 4 · rc

PASSAGE 1

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8

PASSAGE 2

Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14

PASSAGE 3

Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20

PASSAGE 4

Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26 Question 27

The sociologist concludes that it is false that there is a large number of violent crimes. The sociologist supports this conclusion by proposing an alternative explanation for the large number of newspaper stories about violent crimes: because violent crimes are rare, newspapers are more likely to print stories about them when they happen.

This is a cookie-cutter “circular reasoning” flaw, where to support the conclusion, the argument uses a premise that already assumes the conclusion is true. Specifically, the sociologist claims as a premise that violent crime is rare, in order to provide support to the conclusion that violent crime is rare.

The sociologist doesn’t make any claims about whether most newspaper stories are about violent crime, only that there are many newspaper stories about violent crime.

The argument presupposes the truth of violent crime being rare, using this claim as a premise to support the conclusion that violent crime is rare. The conclusion is already presupposed to be true through the premise, making this a circular argument.

The sociologist does not make any claim of whether the newspaper stories about violent crime are or aren’t biased. Bias just isn’t part of the sociologist’s argument.

The properties of members of a group and that group as a whole are not being discussed, so this isn’t relevant to the sociologist’s argument.

The sociologist is not comparing the past to the future. The argument only deals with the current state of violent crime and newspaper articles about violent crime.

Question

87% of people who answer get this correct

This is a moderately difficult question.

CURVE

Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right

25% 133

145

75% 157

Question Stem Tags

Flaw or descriptive weakening

Popularity Avg. score

159

87%

168

164

160

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PrepTest 101 - Section 2 - Question 8

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